Visitation
by wokeuptonight
Summary: The Black family checks up on its black sheep.
1. Bellatrix

_Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot bunny that's been attacking me for days._

* * *

**Visitation**

* * *

The light inside is soft and pale yellow. It reminds me of the evenings when Mother and Father would dance in our ballroom, their faces glowing in the candlelight and the assumption that they were alone. 

I hear two kinds of laughter from within. The recent rains have thankfully dried up from the grass already, so my feet make no sound as I move closer.

I don't look inside yet, contenting myself with just the sounds coming from inside the house. I've been doing this in attacks recently. The others are all about urgency, and most of the time I am too, but sometimes I like to challenge myself by using only my hearing to figure out when my prey is at its happiest and most oblivious, and _then_ striking. I like to hear the laughing turn to screams before he gets what he deserves.

There is a scratching sound, a crackle, and a whirr of a disc before I hear tentative notes coming from a piano somewhere inside. The laughing stops. There is a shuffling of feet on carpet. I lean against the brick of the exterior of the house and clutch at my belly, warmed by the thought of the future inside it.

"She kicked," says a woman's voice from inside the house. My stomach clenches.

"Really?" replies a man's voice.

I hear nothing after. I strain myself to keep from looking, but do so anyway.

Andromeda stands in the middle of the room. Her hair flows past her shoulders and a smile pulls at her lips. The Mudblood is kneeling on the floor, pressing his ear and hands to her belly, which is as huge as mine would be in seven months.

They look happy. I can't look away.

The Mudblood stands up and smiles at her. "I reckon she'll be coming really soon," he says.

Andromeda laughs. "In that case, you should be ready to get me out of here any minute now."

"I've even packed her clothes," he answers. "And her bottles. And those small dolls you bought eight months ago."

"I love you," Andromeda tells him, and I briefly wonder what that means.

The Mudblood heads out of the room to attend to something, leaving Andromeda standing alone. Her wrinkled eyebrows tell me that she's either listening very intently or thinking of what she has to do tomorrow. I hope it's not the former.

"There you are, Bella."

I turn around to see Rodolphus.

"What are you planning to do?" he asks quietly, drawing his wand in excited anticipation.

"Nothing," I say in the tone that gets me in charge.

He looks like he wants to ask why but ends up not saying anything. Instead, he draws me roughly to him and crushes my mouth with his. I could feel warmth and restrained power pulsing in every caress of his lips and in his hands stroking my back and my belly and our child inside, and I don't care what love is anymore because this is what I want. I let him lead me away from the house.

* * *

Andromeda thinks she could make out a familiar couple kissing outside in the darkness, and before she even worries for her family's safety, she thinks it's ironic that this was the sister who didn't believe in love. 


	2. Narcissa

The week after the ball my parents threw to celebrate my graduation from Hogwarts, I make up a brilliant excuse ("Mrs. Wilkes has invited me for tea; I think she's thinking of me for Damien") and follow the Gryffindor to the new home of my Muggle-loving sister.

The Gryffindor moves from the Leaky Cauldron to Muggle London with such ease that I immediately suspect he helped her run away. I would tell my and his parents that if I had any actual proof and if he isn't my only hope of finding her. Nobody would tell me where she is. Mother and Father pretend that she never existed. Bella won't tell me anything beyond "our former sister and her future Mudblood spawn," and that she doesn't want me to go near Andy—I mean, Andromeda—for fear that I may still be attached. And the only time Lucius has mentioned her is to call their engagement "a big mistake" and her marriage to the Mudblood "a disgrace."

I try not to tread on anyone and leave them wondering why something invisible seems to have stepped on their feet. Thank Merlin for father's Invisibility Potion, even if it only works for an hour. I must admit, exploring London is refreshing after spending weeks at Grimmauld Place. Salazar forbid I enjoy this _too _much, though.

Sirius stops in front of a narrow brick house tucked in a tree-shaded lane. It's a far cry from the manor, or any other place I've ever been to. Light is allowed inside through the curtain-less windows that aren't blocked by piles of unopened boxes. The garden is no more than two small squares of grass on both sides of a pebbly path leading to the front door.

I watch as Sirius presses the doorbell. The door is flung open by a very pregnant woman. Andy's familiar, beautiful face is at odds with the plain striped shirtdress that stretches around her big belly. Behind her stands the Muggle she has apparently decided to spend the rest of her life with. His hair looks like he's been running his fingers through them all day, and there's grease on the knees of his jeans. He smiles cautiously at Sirius before leading him inside.

It's a windy day, so it doesn't look suspicious that the door is thrown wide open by a blast of air. I slip a foot between the door and the frame and quietly enter the house.

The voices of my traitorous sister and my cousin lead me through the cramped foyer and into the kitchen, where she's serving him a plate of my favorite fudge brownies. I wonder if she would do the same for me. While I haven't been as vocal in my disapproval as Bella (I do not know as many profanities to ever beat what Bella said about Andy—_Andromeda_—that fateful night), I haven't been as kind to her as Sirius has been. Then again, in my defense, after she left, I haven't had an opportunity to be.

The three of them are looking at an old photo album of Andromeda and her husband's Hogwarts days. "This is when I realized I loved her," her husband says, pointing to a picture.

"When she slammed into you on her broomstick and made you lose the Snitch?" Sirius asks, smirking.

"I stopped in mid-air on purpose," her husband insists.

"I should've known Ted was willing to suffer for me," Andy says. Her tone may have been joking, but there is still a noticeable tension that descends on the three of them for a moment. I'm close enough to Andromeda to notice that she is picking at her cuticles, something she does when she remembers something unpleasant.

But the tension disappears as suddenly as it happens, and they're flipping the pages of the book again.

I remain in the kitchen with them, and leave only when Andy—I mean, _Andromeda_—and her husband give Sirius a tour of the rest of the house. There isn't much to speak of, really—just boxes and trunks, old carpets, faded wallpaper.

"This is where the baby will stay," _Andromeda_ says as she welcomes Sirius into the last room with a flourish. A rose-colored armchair stands proudly in one corner, and in the middle of the room I see the biggest thing that Andy brought with her from the manor: her old crib, elaborately carved with the story of Perseus and Andromeda. Even I can appreciate how appropriate it is for Andromeda.

"Happy endings are overrated," Sirius declares in that fifteen-year-old way of his. I have to roll my eyes.

"Watch your mouth," Andromeda says. "You're looking at a happy ending." She and her husband trade saccharine smiles.

Sirius rolls his eyes and regretfully tells Andromeda that he has to go home in time for dinner with his parents and the Notts. He promises to visit again soon before embracing her and shaking her husband's hand. Then he leaves. But I stay and watch Andromeda gaze at the crib and her husband gaze at her with identical twinkles in their eyes.

I go home to find Lucius waiting for me in the parlor and looking at me that way. Andromeda doesn't know what she's missing.

* * *

Andromeda thinks she sees a glimmer of golden hair trailing Sirius as he steps back into the sunny street. But she knows it's too much to ask.


End file.
